Officials in Copake, Diane Valden of The Columbia Paper reports, are wrestling with sharing services with neighboring towns... and coming up with unexpected challenges. During an update from Town Accountant Michael Torchia on town financial matters at the February 10 Town Board meeting, she writes, the issue of who has and has not paid the town for fuel and how and when bills are generated was brought up by Councilwoman Linda Gabaccia, who noted that numerous agencies besides the town's Highway Department use the town's fuel supply at the town highway garage to gas up their vehicles. Those include the Craryville and Copake fire departments, the Copake Police Department, the Community Rescue Squad and the Columbia County Resident Deputy for Copake, Ancram and Gallatin, creating problems because everyone reimburses the town after it makes initial payments. Town Highway Superintendent Bill Gregory shared with Town Board members his frustration when he attempted to figure out who has paid for the fuel pumped dating back to 2009, noting how he sent out an email containing amounts the town had billed each agency and the amounts he knows were received, but on some of the accounts he had no record of payment and didn't know how to find out whether payment was made. Talk about modern complications... and the sorts of hard communications work we all need to do now to make everything work a bit more efficiently.